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A new investigative unit is setting up shop in Nova Scotia right now and reads like a kangaroo court.

In my last column I wrote about the province’s new Cyber-Safety Act that aims to stamp out online bullies. It employs a broad definition of “cyberbullying” that could make criminals out of anyone who’s ever composed an unpleasant text, tweet or e-mail.

It was created in response to the tragic Rehtaeh Parsons case but is an overreaching law that exemplifies the saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”

But a law unenforced is toothless. Readers wrote in to argue it would rarely be used or be refined before put into practice.

Not true. The province recently created CyberSCAN. This unit of five investigators will be up and running next month, tasked with manning the phones to respond to complaints of cyberbullying. The complaint will be assigned to an investigator who will in turn immediately contact the complainant.

What happens next is largely dependent on the approach of the investigator.

A Halifax radio show recently interviewed unit director Roger Merrick, a former police officer. When asked how they’ll separate nuisance complaints from serious issues, Merrick, who seems thoughtful and level-headed, said the “common sense factor” will be decisive.

Red flag, right there. Perhaps Merrick will make the right choice every time. Perhaps his version of “common sense” will overlap with yours.

But what if the next unit director is an activist? They’ll be inclined to see cyberbullies everywhere, and be vigilant with even nuisance complaints.

That’s the criticism often made against human rights commissions.

Merrick explained that should anything outright “criminal” surface, his office won’t take it on — they’ll forward it to the actual police.

Second red flag. This is basically an acknowledgement that the act and the unit only cover things that aren’t actually illegal (aside from the provisions outlined in the new act). Keep in mind, bullying otherwise known as serious threats, harassment and verbal abuse is already illegal.

It seems they’ll just be taking on cases of hurt feelings and online spats.

“The Department of Bad Facebook Comments” reads like a Monty Python sketch, but apparently it’s the reality in Nova Scotia.

This unit has quite the challenge awaiting it. It’s hard to imagine the bulk of complaints being anything other than those upset by jerks on multiplayer online gaming.

Most people know that threatening to kill someone is a matter for the police and calling someone stupid or fat is a matter for parents, family or just something to ignore.

The danger here is bureaucracies like to grow. Once a department is created it’s hard to shut it down. Remember, there’s nothing more permanent than a pilot project. It’s hard to imagine this unit not expanding over the years.

They’ll have to go after low-hanging fruit cases to justify their existence and then any of us could be their target, depending on who’s at the helm. The earnest political will that arose following the Parsons case would have been far better used to create something like a youth counselling centre that could actually address the problems related to teen suicide.

That would have been much better than the ambiguous Cyber-Safety Act and the CyberSCAN office — both of which are just waiting to be exploited by agenda-driven bureaucrats.